True crime author Mardi Link has written a an opinion piece in today’s Detroit Free Press about Governor Granholm’s closure of the Library of Michigan. On July 31 Granholm issued an executive order which would break up and mostly disolve the state library and its valuable holdings. Give me a break DNR watching over the state archives. Here’s a group that couldn’t find a cougar in its backyard. Read the opinion piece by clicking here.

Link who was a successful journalist before returning to her home state and Northern Michigan has written two true crime novels. Her most recent, published by the University of Michigan Press, is “Isadore’s Secret” which you can read about on a previous mittenlit post by clicking here. Link will join other true crime writers on Sunday September 13 at the Kerrytown BookFest in Ann Arbor for a session on writing the true crime novel. Check out the entire schedule for the BookFest by clicking here.

Link, in her opinion piece, tells about her own experiences in researching Michigan true crime history at the state library. She isn’t the only writer digging in the archives and the historical collections for new information. Recently, Peter Morris, who is among the nation’s leading baseball historians, told me one of his favorite places for doing baseball research is the Library of Michigan. And Judge William Whitbeck who has a mystery novel coming out next year based on a Michigan true crime found himself researching it at-you guessed it the Library of Michigan.